“Mending social cracks”
FDP is pushing for a review of the Corona policy
March 26, 2024, 12:07 a.m
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The dispute over partly blackened Corona protocols from the Robert Koch Institute also reaches the traffic lights. The FDP is calling for a study commission to evaluate the national pandemic measures. The liberals are surprised that the SPD and the Greens are resisting this.
Four years after the start of the corona pandemic, the call for a parliamentary review of the crisis policy at the time is becoming louder and louder. In view of the publication of the protocols of the Corona crisis team of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the FDP called on the coalition partners SPD and the Greens to agree to a study commission to deal with the pandemic. “Structural failure and lack of crisis resilience in the education, social, economic and health sectors must be clearly identified and analyzed,” said FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). “We also owe it to the young people, employees and self-employed people who suffered greatly from the strict measures,” he emphasized. An assessment of the national pandemic measures could also help to mend social cracks, warned the FDP politician.
The FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann criticized the fact that there was still no agreement from the coalition partners to a study commission. “It is incomprehensible where this resistance comes from. Even if the workload is already high, we as parliamentarians must not shy away from the additional work that is necessary to fulfill our tasks,” he told the RND. The RKI protocols provide a solid basis for an investigation. “From our point of view, it would have been desirable if the RKI Corona Protocol had been made transparently accessible earlier,” said Ullmann. It raises questions as to why this information is only now available. “This could benefit conspiracy theorists,” complained the FDP politician.
Kubicki: Publish everything
After the publication of protocols from the Robert Koch Institute with many blacked out passages, deputy FDP chairman Wolfgang Kubicki also demanded full transparency from SPD Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. “I therefore call on Karl Lauterbach to publish all the minutes of the RKI crisis team without redactions,” said the FDP politician in Berlin. “Sooner or later he will be forced to do this anyway, either judicially or politically. In any case, as a parliamentarian I will work to ensure that all the basis for the decision at this time becomes public,” emphasized Kubicki. He directed serious accusations at the RKI and also at the former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn from the CDU. “It is becoming increasingly clear that the Robert Koch Institute for Health Policy served as a scientific facade for Jens Spahn and probably also Karl Lauterbach.”
The left-wing alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) had also demanded a comprehensive clarification. “A commission of inquiry is not enough. A committee of inquiry is necessary to shed light on the period with the greatest restrictions on fundamental rights in the history of the Federal Republic,” said Wagenknecht to the dpa. The population has a right to come to terms with it. “In particular, the closing of daycare centers and schools as well as the exclusion of unvaccinated people must be examined, also in order to draw conclusions for future pandemics.”
Federal Health Minister Lauterbach rejected assumptions about external influence on a basic risk assessment by the RKI at the beginning of the Corona crisis in 2020. “The RKI worked independently of political instructions,” said the SPD politician in Cologne to a report in the online magazine “Multipolar”.